Evaluation of the Abbott LCx Assay for Detection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae in Endocervical Swab Specimens from Females

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

American Society for Microbiology

RESUMO

The Abbott LCx Neisseria gonorrhoeae assay (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Ill.) uses a ligase chain reaction (LCR) amplification in the LCx probe system for detection of a specific nucleotide sequence in the Opa-encoding gene of N. gonorrhoeae. We evaluated the LCx assay in a comparison with conventional culture employing modified Thayer-Martin media for the detection of N. gonorrhoeae from female endocervical specimens obtained from patients attending a sexually transmitted disease clinic. Discordantly LCR-positive and culture-negative specimens were further evaluated by testing with another LCR assay which used an N. gonorrhoeae-specific pilin probe. Specimens positive by both LCR assays were considered confirmed LCx-positive specimens. A specimen was considered to contain N. gonorrhoeae when it was either culture positive or culture negative and confirmed LCx positive. A total of 403 female endocervical specimens were evaluated. The prevalence of N. gonorrhoeae in this population was 8.7%. The sensitivity and specificity of the LCx assay were 94.3 and 99.4%, and those of culture were 77.1 and 100%, respectively. The Abbott LCx assay is a rapid, sensitive method for detection of N. gonorrhoeae in female endocervical specimens.

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